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The Long and Short. (Mostly Short.) Let me set the scene. This past weekend I was the first customer at a local deli. I ordered my food, wrangled my toddler and headed toward the checkout. I walked up to a dark screen on the customer

One of our favorite website-building tools is a content management system called Craft CMS. Craft is a world-class platform for developing websites, and it is especially useful when a project has unique needs for custom features with a heavy reliance on interactions between different types

Everything else:

Slack May Not Be Right for Your Team Slack Everywhere By now you may have noticed that Slack is everywhere. The Sky Floor has multiple clients who use Slack for inter-office communication, project collaboration, and file sharing. They rely on Slack for the ease of

It all started in May 2016. A client of ours needed to change their domain name due to rebranding. On average they were receiving 35,000 unique visitors and 150,000+ page views per month, making them a pretty significant online presence. We track year-over-year traffic changes

For many people 2016 was a year of mourning and anxiety. We felt that in many ways as well… but it was also a great year for us. In 2016 The Sky Floor grew around 34% by revenue (the third year in a row of double digit

If you are working for yourself by the hour than “Hourly Billing is Nuts” is the perfect read for you. Author, and fellow solider in the trenches of service providers, Jonathan Stark has written an easy to read primer on why trading your time for money is insanity.

“It’s All About the Guest” is an interesting, albeit slightly flawed read. Steve includes the good and the bad. The flaw is including crude stories including one where a waitress flashes him her chest only covered with whipped cream. That simply serves no purpose besides

“Brandwashed” is my least favorite book in the last few years. I was only able to make it a few chapters in. Most of the content I made it through falls into the expected. An example that epitomizes this is the revelation that shampoo companies

THE FIRST CHAPTER It happens once a month. On our way back from a meeting in the South suburbs we stop at Chick-fil-A Batavia for lunch to go for our families. Our for love Chick-fil-A is no secret. Their food is delicious and good for you

“Setting the Table” is now a favorite book of mine. Danny Meyer’s approach to serving customers with “enlightened hospitality” is applicable for every business. Danny maintains an honest voice throughout, never sugar coating the lessons learned through the pains and joys of growth. From these sometimes difficult

This statement has been the source of much deserved backlash over the years. People realize that business is at it’s best when it becomes personal to it’s customers and employees. Lately I have been thinking about how business can use this adage to redefine their customer relationships

“Simple Rules” is about creating simplicity even in complex situations. The book covers a wide range of topics which benefit from rules including science, medicine and business. The authors share how they have helped organizations implement these concepts. According to “Simple Rules” there are 6 types of rules;

In our experience marketing for businesses, we have been asked to help bail out a few companies who are struggling to survive or return to their heyday. While there are many lessons you learn, here are the top 3 things these experiences taught us. 1. Know your business

“The Virgin Way” by Richard Branson is a mostly enjoyable read focusing on Branson’s years of running the Virgin Group of companies. Having started over 400 enterprises in the last 40+ years he offers insight to a wide range of successes and failures. If you are an

Fast Company has a great piece on employee engagement. Creating a fulfilling leadership atmosphere is critical to the productivity, engagement and long term happiness of your employees. “Without exception, bosses predominantly concerned about their own needs create the lowest levels of employee engagement. Going forward,

Have you ever used a product, or even just opened it, and realized that no one on the product team must have used a final version before it hit the market? Have you walked into a store and felt like the shopping flow was confusing

Replying to negative (and positive) feedback on Yelp as the business owner is always a best practice. Many businesses are realizing this and many experts are advising it. Here are a few things to keep in mind: 1. Be truly conciliatory, not passive aggressive. I

What is innovation? Webster’s defines it as the introduction of something new. That is the classic definition but it has taken on a new meaning in technology. Wikipedia defines it as ‘the application of better solutions that meet new requirements’. It is easy to confuse innovation with invention. Invention

I think we need to redefine what a product is in our collective minds. It is very easy to think of a product as physical good that we can hold and interact with. The rules of product development can and should apply to all layers

This is not at all the best way to go about this. Instead of this approach, a simple sign during peak hours near the register communicating a time limit will suffice. This approach is passive aggressive, hoping to influence behavior by taking away a feature.

A new study shows that music can have a great impact on the experience of people eating at restaurants. Click the button below to read the article over on Discovery.com. Take care that the music you play at your business reflects your concept and the experience

Last spring I was in the bathroom at a movie theater at 10:13 pm and saw this in the bathroom in plain view. Typically trash negligence is not time stamped, note the 11am time printed on the ticket. 10 hours is too long for trash